OHI Science | Citation policy
This script prepares scores (status and trend) for Iconic Species in British Columbia’s coastal regions. Spatial data from IUCN and Aquamaps is combined with extinction risk information from IUCN and conservation rank info based on NatureServe categories.
The Iconic Species sub-goal model calculates a region’s status based upon an unweighted average of species health for all ‘iconic’ species found within each BC reporting region.
From Halpern et al (2012):
Iconic species are those that are relevant to local cultural identity through a species’ relationship to one or more of the following: 1) traditional activities such as fishing, hunting or commerce; 2) local ethnic or religious practices; 3) existence value; and 4) locally-recognized aesthetic value (e.g., touristic attractions/common subjects for art such as whales). Habitat-forming species are not included in this definition of iconic species, nor are species that are harvested solely for economic or utilitarian purposes (even though they may be iconic to a sector or individual). …
Ultimately, almost any species can be iconic to someone, and so the intent with this goal was to focus on those species widely seen as iconic within a country, and iconic from a cultural or existence value (rather than for a livelihoods or extractive reason). …
The reference point is to have the risk status of all assessed species as Least Concern (i.e., a goal score = 1.0)
The Status of this sub-goal (XICO) is then the % of iconic species in each threat category (as defined by the IUCN Red List), such that:
\[X_{ICO} = \frac{\displaystyle\sum_{category}S_{cat}*w_{cat}}{\displaystyle\sum_{category}S_{cat}}\]
where for each IUCN threat category:
ICO trend is calculated in a similar manner, but weightings are assigned according to IUCN population trend: ‘Decreasing’ = -0.5, ‘Stable’ = 0.0, ‘Increasing’ = +0.5.
Changes since 2015 ICO subgoal for global OHI:
List of iconic species:
Species native country information:
Species extinction risk information: